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Messages - gostwyck
4951
« on: May 21, 2009, 05:29 »
Excellent!
Mind you, I can't help being reminded of a stand-up comic who recited a list of "things you never hear people say".
One of them was "Oh, she's shagging the ukulele player"
4952
« on: May 20, 2009, 13:28 »
I'm only seeing steady growth in revenue. I'm on target for a BME in May which, if it happens, will be my 3rd BME in 4 months. My port has about 3K images but no exclusive files.
I'm not necessarily selling more licenses but my RPI has been steadily increasing, presumably as more files are promoted to higher levels, and is currently running at $1.49 this month.
4953
« on: May 19, 2009, 16:28 »
Thanks for that __ I had no idea quite how sneaky they have been.
I've just checked my sales/revenue and in the months before the "price increase" I was averaging 130-148c per sale. Now, like Lisa, I'm down to 84c per sale.
Try it yourself and see how much of that substantial price increase to the customers actually ended up in your back-bin. For me it turned out to be about a 40% pay cut.
4954
« on: May 19, 2009, 12:12 »
To be honest, though, the decline of sales and commissions is more of an issue IMO.
I am concerned about the lower % too. Exactly. Just two years ago BigStock were averaging about 6-7% of my total revenue, neck-and-neck with StockXpert at the time. Nowadays BigStock are down to 2% and fading fast whilst StockXpert has remained unchanged at 7%. I am increasingly concerned that BigStock is now being run as a get-rich-quick scheme for the owners. Commissions have been lowered by stealth and there's not much evidence of significant investment in the site itself or marketing the library. This apparent short-term greed combined with the less than opaque attitude of the management towards their contributors is a worrying sign IMHO. They haven't even bothered to reply/post in their own forums for weeks. Hmm.
4955
« on: May 19, 2009, 02:50 »
Hi all.... I just wanted to take a second to address recent posts here wondering if anything is wrong at BigStockPhoto. Good news - BigStockPhoto is doing great. We are in absolutely no danger, we're financially strong, and to boot, we've seen new all-time record sales figures this year already.
One thing we've always been good at is controlling costs, and we continue to run a very healthy lean, mean organization.
Thanks for the update Tim. I am annoyed though that despite the length of your post you have avoided discussing the important issue of commission percentage and why you have been slowly reducing it over the last couple of years. When I first signed up to BigStock the commission level was 50%. Full stop. Period. I am not aware of any announcements or emails to contributors indicating that commissions were to be reduced and can now be as little as 20%. Judging by the surprised responses from senior contributors earlier in this thread, when I pointed out what the current payout levels actually are, I clearly wasn't alone. Why have commissions been lowered and are we to expect our share of the revenue (generated with our work) to be reduced yet further over forthcoming years? Why can't you be honest and fair to the contributors, that are providing you with a very profitable business, by stating an exact percentage commission like every other agency does on non-subscription sales? Due to the low % commissions, combined with low sales, I have decided to not waste my time any further by uploading to BigStock. In particular I feel disappointed and annoyed about the sneaky way that commissions have been reduced and I no longer trust the management of BigStock.
4956
« on: May 14, 2009, 18:30 »
george, the only possible reason is that you contravened one of the agreements.
-such as : improper ID; images you don't owned; or misled the site in some form.
No that shouldn't be the case as his port is still available. My guess is it's a short-term cock-up which, assuming everything is in order should be resolved soon.
4957
« on: May 14, 2009, 05:20 »
Remember to remove the head and wrap it separately as bumps during handling and travel might damage it.
I generally remove the head and put that in my camera bag (hand luggage) and then have the tripod in the checked-in bag. I've never had my hand luggage weighed so I tend to put any 'heavy but small' lumps in there to maximise what I can put in the main bag.
4958
« on: May 13, 2009, 13:22 »
I think we've run out of different ways to say how much we dislike this idea to be honest!
TPTB seem to be taking their time in making a decision on what to come back to the table with. It's been nearly two weeks since their original announcement was met with almost unanimous horror and disbelief. Hopefully that's a good sign.
4959
« on: May 13, 2009, 13:12 »
... and as much as I appreciate Tyler spending his time trying to make this already informative forum more user friendly I don't really think this particular meter will have any worth. I know of someone on a microstock site forum who is very popular, but he talks the biggest load of cr*p I've ever seen.
Yep, I'd agree too. It'll most likely just encourage sycophantic fawning by some individuals and/or 'forum cliques' to be generated __ if I wanted that I'd be spending time on the SS forums (shudders). Let's keep this place for the discussion of business.
4960
« on: May 13, 2009, 08:27 »
anyway guys, stop going in a rant against BigStock  At the end of the day, they still pay better than IS, right? What a good example for all of us! IS?! 
Not necessarily __ we have no way of knowing what the average payout level is. For all we know it may be little better than 20%. At least IS can justify the low payout level by all the marketing, etc that really does generate the money. IS are generating more than 20x more income for me with my portfolio than BigStock. It seems to me with BigStock we have the worst of all worlds __ very low payout percentage with very few sales. The site is generating $M's for it's owners though.
4961
« on: May 12, 2009, 20:07 »
Ouch! How was C-h-r-i-s-t's name substituted by "creepeers"?
leaf programmed it so 
Works for me __ perfectly.
4962
« on: May 12, 2009, 19:04 »
they don't sell as much, but i am glad they don't pay 30 cents a dl. for that alone, if i were elsewhere i would have to had sold 100 subs, to earn the same $$$
They're running at 2% of my total and are overall very disappointing. Btw, and this is important, what do you think the commission percentage is at BigStock? 50% or thereabouts? WRONG __ it can be as low as 20% per sale. If my memory serves me correct, they started out paying 50% per credit when credits cost $1 or less __ now they pay a fixed 50c per credit although most credits probably cost far more than $1.Credits in packages of less than 10 actually cost $2.50 a pop __ we get 50c of that so there's the 20% level. We only get the full 50% (which I suspect most of assumed we were earning) on packages of 300 credits which also cost $300. I feel that BigStock has done a rather sneaky thing there and, because most people don't take too much notice of them, they've managed to slip in under the radar. I did some number crunching recently and according to my calculations working backwards on known figures BigStock actually has higher annual sales than StockXpert (believe it or not!). They just pay out a heck of a lot less to us.
4963
« on: May 12, 2009, 16:19 »
I'm not so sure __ it's a dark subject and the noise shows up too badly to really see the sharpness. I can absolutely confirm that shooting at 1/200 held-held with a 23MP camera is nothing like fast enough to eliminate camera-shake.
You need to do some proper test shots Sue with the camera tripod-mounted and set to ISO100 __ IS switched off obviously. You need to eliminate all influencing factors apart from the lens and the sensor. I thought IS was marvelleous when I was shooting with a 6MP 10D but as my cameras have improved I am less & less happy with most of the results I get from it nowadays.
I've tried shrinking the image by half, to more or less replicate it at the size it would have been on a 12MP sensor but it's still not clever.
4964
« on: May 11, 2009, 20:31 »
D
4965
« on: May 11, 2009, 20:17 »
D
4966
« on: May 11, 2009, 18:53 »
D
4967
« on: May 11, 2009, 18:45 »
I think you can add "no elephant" too, if there's no elephant in the shot.
If that was included in the CV then, yes ... but of course it's not because it's not a regular buyer requirement. You sound like an immature, pouty 14-year old who refuses to accept the common-sense his parents are patiently trying to explain. Hopefully you'll grow out of it eventually.
4968
« on: May 11, 2009, 16:47 »
I see that Veer Marketplace is requiring the model's birth date and age to be on the model releases. No other micro requires this, so as a result I do not have it on any of my releases.
I am not sure why this requirement is necessary. For my minor models I have parental consent on the releases, and for the adults, beyond general age range for categorizing purposes, I don't see how their exact birth date is necessary.
Lisa, Birth date is required on the IS MR __ and has been for as long as I can remember.
4969
« on: May 11, 2009, 15:13 »
I'd agree with Sean, I didn't understand your logic either. A model that generates thousands of small sales is inherently more stable than one that produces a few large sales. For example microstockers tend to have a more stable income than those who rely on traditional stock sites.
The purchase of a small sub package is often no different to a customer buying a sizeable chunk of credits anyway __ it's just as 'bookable' and probably of a similar value.
Subscription packages also carry an inherent degree of risk to the agency in that they are normally priced such that if the customer downloads all their entitlement the agency makes little or nothing from it. Purchase of credits, on the other hand, are guaranteed to be profitable.
Of course IS's plan shifts all of that risk onto the contributor. It's only just occurred to me that the way they've organised it means that it doesn't actually matter to the agency how many images the subscriber downloads __ the agency will always keep 77.5-80% of the subscription price. Effectively the contributors' pot always remains the same size too but will be divided between all the contributors whose images were downloaded.
For example if they sell an annual package for $1200 they the agency is always guaranteed to keep between $930-960. The contributors' pot will be between $240-270 irrespective of how many images are downloaded.
And that's before we've even thought about reducing prices even further to kill off the competition. This plan allows the agency to act as if the content was effectively wholly-owned by them. Clever __ very, very clever indeed.
4970
« on: May 11, 2009, 13:11 »
The set-up will be no use to me if it only works on a tripod: I'm going to Botswana in July and most of my shooting will be from mokoros (poled canoes). The 100-400 IS L has often been recommended for safaris, where in general you have little chance of using a tripod; with my 350D I was fine with the Sigma 100-300 EX IF DG, but of course, that isn't full frame compatible. I'd imagine at least 95% of my non-isolated-on-white iStock port was hand-held. Obviously the 'set up' stuff needed a tripod.
You should be OK provided you accept that you might need to downsize the images back down to 12MP to get them sharp. You can up the ISO of course ... but then that'll increase the noise ... so then you'll need to downsize again. I have the 100-400 IS myself but ended up buying the 70-200 2.8L IS as, when I got the 1Ds, I wasn't satisfied with the results. The trouble with 23MP is it shows everything up __ but only when you are 'pixel peeping' at 100%. I find downsizing is no great loss anyway as I get very few sales above the IS Large size. The ability to crop or downsize has rescued many a best-selling image for me.
4971
« on: May 11, 2009, 11:51 »
^^^ I'd very much agree with Lisa. I think you can pretty much forget the idea of using a 23MP camera without L-quality glass.
When I upgraded to the 1Ds MkIII, from the 5D, I was intially horrified at the 'mushiness' of the images (even though I was using L glass). It took me a bit of tripod-mounted testing to work out that most of the problem was actually camera shake. I normally prefer to shoot hand-held. I also needed to fine-tune each lens to the camera too (a special feature of the IDS MkIII). What might look pin-sharp with a 12MP sensor may look very different when the image is twice the size. It will really show up any issues in your own technique or indeed the glass.
4972
« on: May 11, 2009, 10:31 »
Also very valuable information.
Thank you very much.
You're all right - upon further thought, I've realised that my stuff isn't really stock material.
100% spot on about the camel. And who would really use a dragonfly for stock (certainly 1 in a thousand at best).
In retrospect, this all seems very obvious, though, so I feel like I could hit my head against a wall now.
I had submitted the factory worker shot and it was also rejected.
I have a few more that relate to labour and factory work, so that is something to consider, certainly.
The only problem is that the factory I have access to has limited lighting. And I can't very well go an set up lighting while the guys are working -
it will distract them and i'll get my @ss kicked straight out of there 
Thanks again guys.
You're welcome. One of the hardest things to learn about this game is actually understanding 'stock', i.e. what an image can be used for and how. Once you understand that it makes the photography much easier as you don't even bother unless conditions for it are pretty much perfect. The standards are much higher now than when I got in too __ I really don't envy you. Most, but by no means all, of the top 'photographers' are/were either designers or at least have a design or graphics background. It gives them a huge advantage over those of us who essentially drifted into this as hobbyist photographers. If you persevere you will eventually 'get it' but I reckon it took me 2-3 years to really start to understand stock and accelerate my earnings. I think by the end of this month I should have sold my 150K'th license but I still feel on an upward trajectory of learning __ which of course is what keeps it endlessly fascinating and rewarding. Real-life manufacturing shots are always challenging because you have so little control of the conditions but they can sell very well if you are successful __ basically because there aren't that many of them. Most agencies will be a little more flexible on the technical aspects of the shot because they understand that and they know there's a demand for them. A large stand-alone reflector can often be a big help too if there's a nearby source of natural light.
4973
« on: May 11, 2009, 08:22 »
... and once again, ranting about keyword rejections without showing the image in question is useless.
True enough ... but then ranting about it at all is generally pointless.
Well, no. Hopefully the OP will learn from this that it is not ok to, for example, keyword a object image as if there were people in it.
Good point!
4974
« on: May 11, 2009, 08:20 »
^^^ Exactly MJ. All the images look to have been shrunk in size or are severe crops of the originals which would give me (as a reviewer) less confidence in your abilities.
The baby shot is poorly lit and/or incorrect WB (strange greenish hue). It also has a very distracting background making it less useful for stock. There are thousands of baby images and I think that yours would be unlikely to sell in competition with them. From the lighting & composition I would describe it as a snap rather than a professional stock image.
The dragonfly shot is OK but is in a very low demand subject and also the head doesn't look to be in sharp focus.
The camel shot again has a distracting background and is in a relatively low-demand subject. Again it's a 'snap'.
Looking at your DT port those welding shots look to be excellent commercially-oriented images. The tropical beach isn't too bad either but you could have improved the comp considerably by walking 10 paces further forward, making more of the sea/huts and taking out the distracting shadows in the foreground.
Don't forget it will be assumed that what you submit is the very best of your work and it indicates not just your photography skills but also your awareness of what makes for good commercial imagery. Good luck!
4975
« on: May 11, 2009, 06:41 »
... and once again, ranting about keyword rejections without showing the image in question is useless.
True enough ... but then ranting about it at all is generally pointless. I've had a couple of really ridiculous rejections for keywords recently but I've just put it down to either the reviewer has a poor understanding of English or they're simply being vindictive or protective of their own best-sellers. The images invariably get approved the second time around with the same keywords. Shrug & move on.
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